


Once, Only

by illumynare



Series: Wash/Carolina Series [3]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: 0 to pining in 60 seconds, Angst, F/M, Mutual Pining, Surprise Kissing, mentions of past Yorkalina
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-14 10:30:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11781297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illumynare/pseuds/illumynare
Summary: He is not hers to mold as she pleases. And this is not love.





	Once, Only

**Author's Note:**

> MUTUAL PINING TRAIN LEAVING THE STATION CHOO CHOO. 
> 
> This is obviously AU, but draws a lot on Carolina and Wash's conversation about York in S15. Also on my own headcanons.

There's a silence between them now.

Carolina doesn't like it. Doesn't want it. But they both went too far, and now—

Every time they speak, she remembers the way her knuckles stung and almost bled against the punching bag. Remembers Wash's fingertips on her scalp, sliding through her hair. Remembers the way she pulled his head into her lap, worked her fingers behind his ears until he sighed and was still, accepting, _trusting_ — 

He shouldn't trust her this much.

She _will_ protect him.

Carolina knows those two truths as intimately as breathing. As intimately as she knows the moans she can coax from Wash's throat when her fingers are pressed to the base of his skull—intimately, precisely, and one time only.

He is not hers to mold as she pleases.

And this is not love.

Love was with York, was impossible, was a way out of Freelancer. (There was no way out.) Love was a man who knew her but did not _know_ her, who let her mold him to her will (who was eager for any order she gave him)—and who yet, in the end, rebelled against her.

_You can trust me._

_Maybe. But you can't trust_ me.

Love was a thing that she ripped out of her heart when she leveled two plasma rifles and chose her loyalties.

This is not love. It is Wash.

And she knows he doesn't love her either, because after the day in the training room—after she recklessly claimed a place in his lap, and let herself pretend he was a refuge—he's different. He ducks his head and doesn't meet her eyes. He slants his body away from her—by less than an inch, but the angle's clear as a slap to the face—and there's a reluctance to the way he speaks now.

He regrets what happened. She's sure of it. He regrets that he went to her in the training room, regrets that she crawled into his lap. Maybe even regrets that he let her touch him a few weeks earlier.

(Epsilon grumbles at her, _Pretty sure you're overthinking this, C,_ and she grits her teeth and mutters back, _Shut up, Epsilon. Since when do_ you _know anything about relationships?)_

When Doyle and Kimball consult with her, Carolina agrees that Wash is best for the solo scouting mission. She watches him go, and she does not miss him when he's gone. Because he's hers to protect, but not to miss.

He is not _hers._

Not the way that York was hers, the same unquestioning way that all of Freelancer was hers (until it wasn't). She is Carolina but he is Wash, and once he held a gun to her head and said, _Protecting my team_. He turned on her before she ever fully trusted him, and she remembers that as she waits for him to come back, as she drives three different trainee squads to tears in their drills.

The Reds and Blues are maybe, almost, something like another family to her. But she's never really earned her place with them, and she knows whom Wash will choose if he must.

(Epsilon is silent at the back of her skull. She can feel the jagged cracks of doubt running through his own mind, _I'm Church I'm Church but I'm not THEIR Church,_ and she can feel his silent, greedy satisfaction that she's also set apart. That she's still just _his,_ and she can't make herself rebuke him for it.)

Wash comes back, stubble on his face and exhaustion in his steps. He delivers his report to Kimball and Doyle, and while they start to argue he glances at Carolina, his mouth slanted in amusement and his eyes—

It's like a strike to her solar plexus, the way he's looking at her, the warmth and _laugh-with-me_ affection that doesn't try to hide his weariness. 

Wash is not hers. But he's the only one who rebelled and _then came back._ She failed him and he still wants to follow her, and that can't last, she's not enough, she never has been.

(Epsilon is not in her head right now and she's glad of it. She doesn't want to know what he'd say, what he'd feel.) 

So when she and Wash leave Kimball's office, when he says to her, "Hey, boss, I guess—"

Carolina does not let him finish. She seizes him by the upper arms (the hold is familiar from a hundred sparring sessions) and she pins him to the wall.

Wash's eyes go wide, his mouth dropping open. He draws in a short, shaky breath, and it sends a shock down her spine. For one endless second she hesitates.

Then she kisses him.

She kisses him hungrily, desperately, without restraint. This is not love and he is not going to be hers. But she can have this. For one moment, she can have _him._

Wash makes a little panicked snort. Carolina hears it even over the drumming of her heartbeat, and she shudders. Starts to draw back. But then Wash makes another little noise, leans forward and bites at her lip.

That's all the permission she needs. She kisses him again, again, until his breath is coming in short, sharp gasps. They're both in armor, bodies locked away from each other, but she can feel the shift in his posture as he relaxes against her, his center of weight sliding to meet hers, hip against hip. She thinks that she's holding him up now.

She thinks she could hold the whole world up, so long as she had Wash sheltered against her.

"Hello!" Caboose calls out, right in her ear.

It's like a bomb going off. Carolina springs back; Wash flattens himself against the wall. 

"Are we practicing first aid?" Caboose asks brightly, looking between them. "Tucker told me mouth-to-mouth was very important."

"I . . ." Carolina says, her voice coming out low and flat, and then she can't go on. Wash has turned a deep, splotchy red, and she can feel the hot flush on her own face.

"If you're kissing Agent Washington then, ah, please don't rip off his head and engage in sexual cannibalism. I would not like that. I don’t think Agent Washington would either."

Wash chokes a little and then says, "Carolina—isn't a preying mantis, Caboose."

He's embarrassed, she can tell, he thinks this is _excruciating,_ but there's still a gentleness in his voice. Caboose is his teammate, after all.

—and she remembers what she's not, what she isn't _to him,_ what she's never going to have.

Carolina runs. She thinks she might hear Wash calling after her, but she doesn't stop. She can't.

She runs. Then she walks. Then she halts and stands at attention, hands curled into fists as she tries to ignore the burning in her eyes.

Wash might have liked the kiss. She thinks he did. But she's not his team. He's not _hers._

It's only fair. She had a team and she failed them. It wouldn't be right for her to get another chance.

She had someone who was hers once, and she threw him down an elevator shaft.

It's only fair.

Late that night, she sits up alone in her room, flicking a battered lighter on and off.

Wash chose his team over her long ago. And she understands why he did.

She just . . . wishes he hadn't.


End file.
